"Of all the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see, this is the chief. ... You do not know what beauty is if you have not been here." -- Mark Twain on Hartford, 1868

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In his 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, Hartford resident Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) coined the term for the late 19th C. period of incredible wealth associated with the rise of white-collar employment, executive leadership, and other spoils of industrialism.

The most affluent city in America during this time was not one of the major metropolises like New York, Chicago, or Philadelphia, but rather Hartford, Connecticut -- comparatively small, but dominated by insurance companies, bankers, major manufacturers, publishing houses, Yankee blue-bloods, and cultural elites. Hartford published more books than any other city, was (and is) the capital of the insurance industry, sent its students to the finest universities, held more patents than anywhere else, and was home to some of the most famously upper-crust families in America -- the Stowes, Beechers, Morgans, Colts, Popes, Days, and more.

This project is for those who helped make Hartford the financial and cultural capital of its heyday.

Please add: Major business and government figures; authors, actors, and artists; the inventors and industrialists; prominent socialites; and everyone else who kept the city running in its own gilded way. As with most historical eras, the timeframe is a rough guideline.

Academics & Educators

• Rev. Calvin Stowe, prominent theologian and educator
• Yung Wing, educator and pioneering Asian-American

Artists & Authors

Note: Most "creatives" of this period lived in Nook Farm.

• Katharine Seymour Day, accomplished Nook Farm painter
• William Gillette, Sherlock Holmes portrayer and America's first star of the stage
• Rev. Calvin Stowe, bestselling author and Harriet's lesser half
• Harriet Beecher Stowe, "the little lady who started this great war"
• Mark Twain, Hartford's biggest booster and Harriet's next-door neighbor
• Charles Dudley Warner, novelist and legendary editor of newspapers and magazines
• Susan Lee Warner, pianist who helped start the Hartford Philharmonic Orchestra

Financiers & Executives

• Leverett Brainard, director of the Aetna Life Insurance Company and secretary of the City Fire Insurance Company
• Eliphalet Adams Bulkeley, first president of the Aetna Insurance Company
• Morgan Gardner Bulkeley, president of Aetna Life Insurance Company
• William R. C. Corson, chairman of the board of Hartford Steam Boiler
• J. P. Morgan, legendary financier and business titan
• J. P. Morgan, Jr., his father's economic sequel

Inventors & Industrialists

• Leverett Brainard, president of the Hartford Paper Company
• Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, shadow president of Colt Manufacturing Company
• Albert Augustus Pope, founder of Pope Manufacturing Company
• Albert Linder Pope, heir to his father's business
• William Hazen Rogers, co-founder of the Rogers Brothers silver company
• William Henry Watrous, president of the William Rogers Manufacturing Company

Philanthropists

• Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, deemed "First Lady of Hartford" due to her giving
• Katharine Seymour Day, champion of historic preservation

Politicians

• Leverett Brainard, Hartford mayor, chairman of the powerful state Committee of Railroads
• Morgan Gardner Bulkeley, Hartford mayor, Connecticut governor, United States senator
• Francis Gillette, state party hand and U.S. Senator
• Brevet Maj. Gen. Joseph Roswell Hawley, Connecticut governor, United States Senator, Civil War veteran
• Alvan Pinney Hyde, prominent lawyer and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention
• Frank Eldridge Hyde, prominent local attorney, state representative, foreign diplomat
• William Waldo Hyde, attorney and Hartford mayor
• Julius L. Strong, United States congressman and member of the Common Council
• Loren P. Waldo, United States congressman and Hartford judge
• Gideon Welles, United States Secretary of the Navy

Preachers

• Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, (Christian) world-famous preacher
• Rev. Calvin Stowe, theologian, seminary educator, writer of religious texts

Publishing

• Elisha Bliss, Jr., president of the American Publishing Company and "discoverer" of Twain
• Leverett Brainard, founding partner of Case, Lockwood & Brainard Publishing Company
• Alfred E. Burr, editor and part-owner of the Hartford Times, and Democratic kingmaker
• Newton Case, founding partner of Case, Lockwood & Brainard Publishing Company
• Brevet Maj. Gen. Joseph Roswell Hawley, publisher and editor of The Hartford Courant
• John Hooker, a leading abolitionist newspaper man
• Charles Dudley Warner, legendary editor of newspapers and magazines

Social Reformers

• Frances Ellen Burr, prominent suffragist and writer
• Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, prominent suffragist and community organizer
• Harriet Foote Hawley, trailblazing Native American rights activist
• Isabella Beecher Hooker, prominent suffragist and social eccentric
• John Hooker, abolitionist and women's rights activist

And the rest...

• Morgan Gardner Bulkeley, Baseball Hall of Famer and first president of the National League
• Francis Gillette, Hartford's original luxury real estate baron
• John Hooker, Gillette's partner in developing and selling Nook Farm
• Thomas Clapp Perkins, prominent Nook Farm attorney
• Edward Tuckerman Potter, personal architect to the Clemens, Colt, and Warner families

Related Projects

• Cedar Hill Cemetery, where Hartford's most fashionable spend eternity
• Spring Grove Cemetery, also used by notable Hartford families
• Trinity College, where the (privileged) sons of Hartford got their education